- 1818: Illinois became the 21st state of the United States.
- 1912: Greece and Bulgaria agree to cease hostilities in the First Balkan War.
- 1944: The Battle of Athens, a major battle of the Greek Civil War, began.
- 1967: Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human-to-human heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1979: The Bhopal disaster, a gas leak from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, killed thousands and caused widespread environmental contamination.
- 1984: The worst industrial disaster in history, the Bhopal gas tragedy, killed over 3,500 people in India.
- 1989: The Maltese government announced its intention to become a republic, shedding its ties to the United Kingdom.
- 1994: Sony released the PlayStation video game console in Japan.
- 2000: The first woman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was elected president of Liberia.
- 2011: The Syrian civil war began with anti-government protests in Daraa.
- 2020: The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.